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It has been a while since I posted a photo and story from Sardinia and now I say goodbye, farewell and hello from the Perda S’Oliu Mine . With pain in my heart and tears in my eyes I leave this last panorama photo of a visit to an abandoned cobalt mine in the mountains near the town of Fluminimaggiore at the end of June in the hope to return soon. In my new live, I shall try to continue the creation of panorama photos showing scenes from Ankara and the rest of a rapidly modernizing ancient Byzantine-Ottoman empire, inviting you to visit me once in a while at my new site ANKARAMAS.

Scattered all over the island of Sardinia, one finds some 7000 remains of towers and even castles surrounded by villages that were constructed during the Bronze Age or ‘Tempus De Brunzu’. The ‘Nuraghe de su Piscu’ (‘nurra’ or heap of stones of the bishop) is one of them, found along the road between the towns of Suelli and Mandas. This Megalithic structure is thought to have been build during the late Bronze Age (1500 – 1200 BC) and consists of a central conical tower with four smaller ones connected by walls and surrounded by a village of huts of which traces are still visible on aerials. Outside Nuraghe Piscu, it is the endemicperennial Magydaris pastinacea that rules these days. Continue reading →

Through wide shut eyes, about to enter a day-wake dream brought to me by modern medicine, I encountered a real surreal metaphysical master. One like Giorgio de Chirico (1888 – 1978) who first presented colorful metaphysical images with sharp contrasts of light and shadow, often depicting desolated Italian squares containing objects and figures in a dreamlike scene of that ‘which cannot be seen’. Or like the subsequent surrealists juxtaposing objects out of normal context in distant subconscious relation; Continue reading →

This weekend I remained hidden in the house dreaming of far away places and thinking of leaving for long voyages, maybe even taking the boat at Cagliari port sunrise. Remembering sitting on a bench watching the ships come and go, I contemplate following in the wake of the Romans that conquered the port of ‘Caralis’ from the Carthaginians and exported wheat, salt, lead, copper and silver from the island of Sardinia to the ever hungry continent. The port of ‘Callari’ once was the maritime center of the western world until the discovery of the Indies and Americas and then remained an important hub for the Mediterranean with more than 5000 ships passing annually, transporting over half a million containers. Somehow, I and my meager possessions might have to fit into that traffic going sometime somewhere elsewhere .

The historic Castle quarter of Cagliari (‘Castéddu ‘e susu’), situated on a 100 m high limestone hill, protects the powers by its massive walls and clamps its citizens into living along high and narrow (3D pano) alleys. The fortifications were build in the 13th century by the ‘Pisani’ and in the 14th century conquered by the ‘Aragonesi’ that forbade any Sardinian to live within the quarter and when found present after sunset was thrown over the steep walls into the dark depth below. During the 18th century, the ‘Piemonti’ took over and only when the ‘Nobili’ left in the 19th century for better living in the new Marina quarter, arrived the large families of poor that nowadays have to make room again for the modern wealthy, re-entering the freshly renovated ‘Palazzi’, and should they have to leave soon, then let’s hope through the gates and not over the walls, this time.